d amongst the low boughs of the trees. Use yours,
too, Dan."

Brace was already carrying out that plan, attracted as he was by the
sight of parrots and the glimpses of green and scarlet he kept seeing--
brilliant tints that evidently formed part of the gorgeous livery worn
by the macaws which made a home high up amongst the top branches of the
huge trees.

Brace glanced back at the brig swinging in midstream by her chain, with
her square sails hanging motionless in the hot air; and then as the men
dipped their oars gently, the boat glided close in towards the
overhanging boughs, which displayed every tint of rich tropical green.

One was literally covered from the water's edge to its summit with a
gorgeous sheet of brilliant scarlet blossoms, over which flitted
butterfly and beetle, a very living museum of the most beautiful insects
the travellers had ever seen.

"It does not seem as if we need go any farther, Brace," said Sir
Humphrey.

"So I was thinking," said the former. "Look at those lovely
humming-birds. Why, they're not so big by a long way as the
butterflies."

"I was looking," said Sir Humphrey, "and longing for a tiny gun loaded
with dry sand or water, to bring some of them down. Look at the bright
blue steely gleams of their forked tails."

"No, no," whispered Brace, as if afraid to speak aloud lest the glorious
vision of colour should pass away; "I meant those tiny fellows all blue
and emerald-green there, with the tufts of snowy-white down above their
legs. Oh, what a pity!"

The last words were said as the blaze of blossom and flitting colour
passed away, for as the boat glided on they passed in amongst the veil
of drooping leaves and twigs which brushed over their heads and
shoulders, and were at once in a soft twilight, looking up into a
wilderness of trunks and boughs, where for some moments after the sudden
change all looked strangely obscure and dense.

But there was plenty to see there as the men laid in their oars and one
in the bows thrust out the hook to take hold of a branch here and there
and drag the boat along towards a more open part, which soon took the
form of a vegetable tunnel, proving to be an arched-in muddy creek,
amongst whose overhanging cover something was in motion, but what it was
did not become evident for a few minutes in the gloom.

"Is it a great serpent?" said Brace huskily.

"No," said Briscoe quickly. "A party of monkeys playing at
follow-my-leader. L